Sup tg, I am looking for a 2 player system with peculiar specifications.
Due to an accident my gf has lost 5% of her vocabulary and more like 15% of her (non-native) English vocabulary.
She can't look at screens for long while recovering, so I am looking for a modern/urban fantasy TTRPGs suitable for 2 players. Preferably one GM and one player. Bonus points for something with a lot of room for randomization, as that way more "lost" words can be encountered and will get stale less quickly.
Currently I have my eye on Scarlet Heroes. While it is not modern I do love Kevin Crawfords other work. Maybe I will mash it together with SWN for a more contemporary experience.
General one on one TTRPG sources and advise is also welcome.
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Was going to suggest Scarlet Heroes, its pretty great. The mechanics and tables are useful for other material, SWN has rules for 1 player 1 dm in it as well. Silent Legion is the modern horror bit of his, it has a lot of stuff you could likely crib even if you weren't doing horror.
Lots of the zine style rules light games have a decent amount of procedural table generation, maybe something like Knave.
How to Host A Dungeon might be fun, I have done that as a writing game with my wife and had a good time.
Same for The Quiet Year, post apoc map making game with an oracle deck, might help with conversation and vocabulary.
Its a board game but Codenames is a word/vocabulary game that has a 2 player variant iirc.
Wow, thanks a ton. These are great suggestions. Are the SWN 1 on 1 rules in the second edition. I havent gone through it as thoroughly as the first.
Codenames sounds great as well. Do you recommend any zines besides knave? Maze rats and the like maybe?
Yeah Maze Rats has some tables/is easy to sort out between 2 players.
Into the Odd is my prefered osr-adjacent ultralight, its almost modern as well, Electric Bastionland is an expanded version.
Could probably do Ultra Violet Grasslands as a travel game together too. Not sure I'd use the system in it but I've considered running/corunning it with maybe Simple World and a solid oracle or something similar.
Could probably play 4 Against The Darkness together as a team too.
Any system could do this. Some better than others. Beef the single PC up a bit and maybe give some retainers. Is this for fun of for therapy?
Mostly fun. While therapeutic effects are a bonus. She mostly has to recover for a long time. So I am looking for stimulating ways to kill time for her.
Sounds like fun I hope it works out and you both have fun
Thanks anon. We will make the most of it.
>"My girlfriend has brain damage."
>Posts intellect devourer
OOF
Haha yeah it been real, but long story short we got very lucky and so we have been able to laugh about it. It is more complicated than just an accident, but didn't want to blogpost.
Hope your girl is ok, bro.
Thanks mate. Shes going to be fine. Nothing short of a miracle. It doesn't feel like it all the time, but we are blessed.
There's a version if gumshoe called one-to-one or something like that designed for 2 person play, if you are at all interested in how gumshoe works.
I have no clue about gumshoe, but will keep it in mind.
Its for investigation and mystery games. You don't roll for clues if you are a competent character looking for them, a doctor examining a body just finds the medical clues etc, the game focuses instead in interpreting clues in character rather than checking if you found any. Your stats are pools of points and you spend them for extra information and stuff during the course of an investigation, and they refresh between investigations.
There's a quick start version of the rules as part of the esoterrorists quick start, I think.
The one-2-one rules are slightly different than the base rules, even. Your investigative skills no longer have points tied to them. Instead, you get a certain number of "pushes" which are like investigative points not tied to a particular skill, and I believe you can do things to earn more in play.
Interesting stuff. Seems worth checking out just for the novel way of approaching investigation hurdles.
Thanks senpai.
While it sounds cool this is a bit too much leg work for me. As I also have to spend time caring for her in other ways. Shame about the trannies, I don't have problems with all of them, but I know just what you mean.
Into the odd had some cool ideas. I liked the idea of just dealing damage best, giving people better gear when they've rolled poor stats after that. Though I admit that it is a bit too cerebral for me. I like conventional stuff.
Maze rats had the tables that generated random spells no? That seems great.
Was going to post this. They have a Nights Black Agents book (called solo ops, think Jason Bourne vs. Treadstone, only Treadstone is run by vampires) and a trail of Cthulhu one called Cthulhu confidential.
I wish you luck and a fast recovery for your gf OP godspeed
If you don't mind doing some leg work, the Cortex engine lets you build an RPG from scratch to whatever specifications you need. I use it to run high action anime/superhero inspired games, but you can just as easily tweak a few rules and make a 0 combat political thriller full of mysteries and intrigue. Easiest explanation is that it's kinda like the inbetween of Fate and GURPS in terms of customizability, so if you're not willing to put in the work and testing involved in building the RPG you want then it's probably not worth the hassle. The Discord is full of gamedevs that share great ideas on getting started, but it's unironically full of autistic they/them trannies so it's a colossal mixed bag.
Sorry to hear for your gfs accident. Hope she gets well soon.
As for a system I was about to suggest SH. But you already have it in mind. I myself play a homebrew system that works great for solo, one or one or group.
Roll under stat but higher is better. Crit is the exact stat. Player facing, GM rolls only on random tables and monster dmg.
Simple weapon d4
Normal weapon d6
Heavy weapon d8
Damage reduction armour system.
Light armor d2
Medium armor d4
Heavy armor d6
HP is around 20 for developed character. I don't use levels but can easily be haked.
Best Feature of the system is it is very simple and fast and there's not a lot of back and forth for every action. PCs can pretty much autoplay and the GM describes the action. A lot of agency and fun. Skills and spells are custom negotiated with GM like in Whitehack.
Hope I gave you some ideas to hack something of your own.
Also I play a lot of one on ones with my wife over the years between group campaigns. Ot can be very fun. There's a trick:
Use Mythic GME as an Oracle for SOME stuff and have a GMPC that basically lets you play along with her co-op. Of you are into talky-talky roleplay it is better then sex. We had sessions talking for hours in character over campfire. But even without this rolling random encounters and dealing with them together is great couple experience.
But it requires a bit different GM mindset opposed to standard group.
Basically you will be running your main NPC 100% of the time and a few NPC party members on the side. If you are not comfortable npcs talking to eachother (my absolute favourite gig) the game will feel empty.
Nope epilepsy operation. No clots.
Sounds tight. Reminds me of sharp swords & sinister spells. Except there they reduce damage dice in steps. I can recommend it. Its very whitehacky now that you mention it. I think your homebrew sounds tight.
Redpill me on mythic gme oracle? Oracles are new for me. While I don't plan on actually playing a GMPC, I'd like to incorperate oracles to lessen the prep workload.
>Redpill me on mythic gme oracle
Basically you need two things:
1. A single d6. Ask a question. Ex:
Are these creatures willing to talk? Assign Xof6 to the d6, for the current example lets say it is 2of6 that they will be willing to speak to the party. ( You rolled 1, so they are! OK, off to step 2.)
2. Use MythicGME android app for the two random words. After clocking Random Event we get Move toward thread "Vengeance Inside". This is great. So now we can construct the scene does:
The trolls are willing to speak to the players, when they see them they shout "Hey you l com ere!" And start waving at the players. Turns out they need Vengeance of some kind (related to your quest since it is move toward thread) gor example the goblin tribe that has kid aped the mayer daughter has stolen some shit from them too and they need them murderized now. So they need you to find a way i side since you are " tiny 'n scrawny". Now you can come up on the fly with hidden lever that opens a big door that will let the two trills inside and they can kill most of the goblins for you.
Bonus round: Foreshadow a lot of traps. If your gf figures out that it is a good idea to disarm most of the traps before opening the door for the trolls they will survive (since trills are not the beast at avoiding traps and so on). If they survive you make allies with their fraction for future adventure.
All this from one die roll and two random words.
You can roll on tables instead of using the app but this way it is faster and it is free. Ignore everything else. (You van use it of course if you like, I prefer d6.)
MGE is free. You can skim through it for ideas. Its like 50 pages.
Man, low quality phone posting. Sorry.
Use donjon random tools, MORKBORG random monster generator,
and a bunch of other stuff. Find ehat works for you.
When you gitgut at this you will be able to pull exiting adventure out of your ass at any time even for a group.
Failed to ref your post.
>Its very whitehacky now that you mention it
I found Whitehack a year after I came up with the system and was a bit shocked how close ot was. There a few notable differences that make the game play a lot differently (mainly classes and levels). But I really fell in love with the whole (player comes up with spell/ability) Made my life as a homebrewer super easy. When they collect 10xp, PCs can use it to upgrade or create new ability. Works like butter.
Yes I love it for that reason as well. Shame that most of my players are still not well adapted to the OSR gameplay and basicly just twiddle their thumbs till adventure comes along.
>Use MythicGME android
Bro bless you. I was 100% going to make an executable to do something similar for me, and would have wasted hours on it (cant program for shit).
Very little actually. As soon as she could walk we pretty much got send off. I appreciate all advise, though generally we are just going to roll with what is comfortable in the first few weeks. I think dealing with the frustration of habilitation is going to be a big one. As it puts a lot of strain on us.
>roll with what is comfortable
Doing what is comfortable and only what is comfortable isn't a great idea. Modern stroke therapy relies substantially upon the work of Roald Dahl who wilfully ignored the medical advice of an hour a day, which is all the treatment stroke patients were given, as utterly ineffective and pushed his wife. Years later he said, “Surely one hour a day is not enough. What in the world are you going to teach a child if she only goes to school for an hour a day? That is what Pat was like then–a child. She didn’t even know her ABC.”
Patricia herself wrote afterwards, “Rehabilitation is not pleasant and it takes work, work, work. From the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night, everything I had to do fought my natural inclination, which was to just lay myself down and let it all work itself out.”
It's hard work. You have to deal with it. 1 word out of every 20 lost is substantial. 1 word in 6 from English is devastating.
I really, really hope you are asking for and getting advice from other places. /tg/ isn't renowned for its medical intervention knowledge.
Assuming her family hasn't done it already you, as in you personally, need to be on the phone to her GP or family physician making her appointment for a consultation and accompanying her to get advice from the doctor. Don't leave without a referral for rehabilitation. You personally need to be looking up speech therapists and having her assessed. And if her family is doing that already, you personally need to be holding them accountable and finding out what is going on and when it's happening. As tough as you think it might be to be pushing your gf along, it's nothing compared to what your gf is going through. Doing just what is comfortable? Do you want her to recover fully or not?
I appreciate concern. But you are overanalyzing my statement. When I said what is comfortable. I meant what I could set up in a reasonable amount of time while at work not not making a deliberate effort to recover. We have multiple medical professionals and doctors in our family and direct contact with some of the top neurological institutions in the world.
I am here to looking for ways to pass the time, preferably with a speech component, not looking for ways to rehab my gf.
Out of general interest, along with the love, commitment and patience she's getting from her bf (or gf), did the neurologist/speech therapist/psychologist give any guidance on rehabilitating her language skills?
Things like reading books including language learning texts, writing practice, listening to audio books, particular podcasts or television, engaging in conversation Or even various word games like the Once Upon a Time story telling card game or Werewolf/Mafia/Resistance which are social deduction games? Techniques for dealing with the stress and frustration she may experience (which is really common in rehabilitation)?
One thing i can say, even though they are a bit childish and are generally time wasters of dubious educational benefit in a high school context, word finders can have calming effects upon the mind as a mindfulness practice and could at least expose her to words. One set I encountered was itself based around interesting quotes. There are numerous generators online (for Latin alphabet) and you can arbitrarily choose words for her.
Mindfulness and similar meditation techniques are shown (20 minutes a day, not 5 like pic related but 5 minutes is a good start) to after less than a week increase memory and learning significantly and the long term benefits are on going if the practice is sustained.
“Mindfulness meditation” is a scam invented by a conartist who used to get people to pay him for him to yell abuse at them and not let them use the bathroom for three days straight
Most are, however it has been studied in labs with shit strapped to people heads and it works.
Relaxing isn't bs
Although different circumstances my gf is also ESL, and one thing that really helped develop her vocabulary over the last 4 years is Scrabble. Always struggled to get her in to TTRPGs, and the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective games too really helped with her reading (which is a fun co-op detective game).
Unrionically, the best 1 player 1 gm system I ever played was Pokemon tabletop United.
Just run a regular gym route story and bang, easy.
Also DeviantArt already has hundreds of original maps made.
I don't have much for you, but I hope you guys have a fun and relaxing time
I was in this thread a few days ago but I just remembered a good suggestion. This dude has a few games that are specifically made for him to run for his wife. I have not player or read them but it seems like its right up your ally. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/384306/Lady-Spy-Detective?src=hottest_filtered
Thanks amigo.